There are lots of reasons to keep your phone out of the bathroom, but protecting your phone from germs or potential falls into the toilet are secondary—though, yes, stop putting your phone in your back pocket, that’s dangerous. But the real reason to leave your phone out of the bathroom is mindfulness.

The most frustrating thing about a phone addiction is that unlike actual substance abuse, the solution is not to stop using it completely. Instead, we have to find ways to use this technology responsibly, fighting apps overtly designed to steal our time.

When you’re staring at your computer screen, wondering why you can’t just make yourself do the work you need to do, it’s easy to blame your focus. If you’re unorganized and don’t really have a plan, maybe you have a bigger problem.

According to local news reports, an area man stopped checking Twitter for a few minutes yesterday and promptly died because he wasn’t up to date on the haps. Except that didn’t happen. It never happens. So don’t worry like it does.

You call them “distractions.” Maybe you call them your to-do list. Whatever word you use, they’re the things that keep pulling you away from what you should be doing right now. These habits require your reaction, and they get in the way of real productivity.

Clearing out everything in your inbox feels great. You get a sense of accomplishment and your to-do list feels a little less burdensome. Except, productivity isn’t measured by how many emails you answer. Instead, learn to manage how you spend your attention.

When you’re at a social event, there’s a lot going on and plenty of reason to scan the room. If you want to have an engaging conversation with the person you’re talking to, though, stop scoping the place out for something more interesting.

Most of us—no matter how many time-saving techniques we employ—don’t have enough time to waste. But productivity comes at a cost: having that down time is extremely beneficial. We fight against boredom, distraction, and procrastination all the time, but that doesn’t mean you should get rid of them completely.

In the information age, attention is the currency you spend on content. Most of us are willing to give attention away freely, because it's so easy. However, if you treat your attention like a resource on par with your money, you could get more done.

It's easy to not pay attention to the world. We lower our eyes when we walk and avoid eye contact at the supermarket. For most of us, our default state tends to be ignoring what's around us. But doing so makes us miss out on inspiration and fails to develop our curiosities. Here's how to train yourself to pay a little…

Technology usually makes our lives easier. It also makes it so we don't have to practice a few basic skills. After years of smartphone use, many of us can't even remember a phone number. Here's how to get the skills that matter back.

We've talked about ways to improve your attention span in the past, but before you change anything else, there's one thing you can do that will make the most difference: Stop pushing your attention span so much. By overtaxing yourself, you actually do more harm than good.

Dear Lifehacker,I'm a terrible listener. I want to do better, but I have trouble paying attention. I miss what people say a lot and end up embarrassing myself and offending them. How can I become a better listener for everyone's sake?

It's increasingly easy to ignore what's around us at any given point and pay attention instead to our phones, computers, or other gadgets. However, as novelist Jonathan Safran Foer reminds us in an essay for The New York Times, paying attention to people around us is a valuable skill.

While the internet allows us to do more than ever, all that potential productivity comes with a price: endless distraction. This video from the folks at Epipheo illustrates the kind of long-term effects the frenetic pace of the web can have on our minds.

David Allen, the creator of the Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity method, explains in this short video how you can get control over your to-do list by clarifying your actions and the results you want. If you're not keeping a to-do list because it's never helped you, his tips may help you start one that works…